Once again this is an example of government and media induced intergenerational infighting.
The solution is simple. CB is repaid through tax at a certain level. Why can’t WFA be dealt with similarly.
i understand how younger generations may feel about pensioners receiving WFA and think much of those feelings have been driven by the media.
Older people are portrayed as wealthy boomers, holidaying in the sun, sitting on huge piles of property earned wealth, with large triple locked pensions etc. etc.
For some that may be true, but not for all. And particularly not necessarily for lone women currently in their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.
We are the generations that experienced Married Womens NI, no Home Responsibilities protection (NI credits) when children were young, being locked out of Private Pension funds because we were women, the changing of Pension age with very little notice etc. People in their late 70’s and above are also on a lower basic Pension provision than later generations.
When you add the facts that Supplementary Benefit was often the only route for women through a Divorce system that was heavily in a mans favour in terms of the division of financial assets and it is easy to see why there are so many struggling Women pensioners.
However, I have yet to hear any of my friends in this situation bemoaning their lot. They quietly turned off the heating last winter and replaced it with blankets. As generations before them will have done.
I honestly think we need to understand where all the hype from WFA is coming from. It is media driven and induced by a clumsy government that has no idea of how to create a balanced and fair tax regime. Yes pensioners voted with their feet at the last election round but many of them only did so because of media hysteria.
I hate, and I dont use that word lightly, HATE the current pitting of generations one against the other. It is constant, you cant read a newspaper, listen to a political programme or even sit around a lunch table without the subject of rich boomers, or lazy feckless benefit recipients being broached.
What needs to happen is that the government stops knee jerking with their taxation and benefit mechanisms. Devise a system that is fair for all sectors of society and stick to it. For those on WFA who are deemed not to need it, tax it away like CB, but don’t just whip away a benefit that was important to some cohorts. Recognise that some are in a situation of need because of their own specific experiences at the hands of a society that was far less fair to women in the past.